Vladimir (for some reason) made me
happy.
We went to the circus together
and watched
the sunrise.
At night I would rest my cheek
on his chest
and dream of snow.
He would read me fairy tales
and make me relish
the bare essentials.
One day I came back and he wasn't there.
(Or perhaps pieces of my skin
were missing.)
Vladimir flayed my feelings
(stole my life)
and ran to catch
the last train
to Russia.

Born in Athens in 1976, Marigo Alexopoulou graduated from the University of Athens with a BA in Classics and Philosophy. She has written two collections of poems, Faster than Light (2000) and Some Day is Missing (2004). She lives in Athens.

Peter Constantine’s most recent translations are Self’s Murder, by Bernhard Schlink (Vintage Books, 2009), Sophocles’s Three Theban Plays (Barnes & Noble Classics, 2008) and The Essential Writings of Machiavelli (Modern Library, 2007). He was awarded the PEN Translation Prize for Six Early Stories, by Thomas Mann, and the National Translation Award for The Undiscovered Chekhov. His translation of the complete works of Isaac Babel received the Koret Jewish Literature Award and a National Jewish Book Award citation. He has recently translated Within Four Walls: The Correspondence between Hannah Arendt and Heinrich Blücher, 1936-1968 for Harcourt, and Gogol's Taras Bulba, Tolstoy's The Cossacks, and Voltaire's Candide for Modern Library. He was one of the editors for A Century of Greek Poetry: 1900-2000 and The Greek Poets: Homer to the Present (W.W. Norton, 2010). He is currently working on a translation of The Essential Writings of Rousseau for The Modern Library. He is the recipient of a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship for his translation of Emmanuel Roidis.

About Words Without Borders

Words Without Borders opens doors to international exchange through translation, publication, and promotion of the best international literature. Every month we publish select prose and poetry on our site. In addition we develop print anthologies, work with educators to bring literature in translation into classrooms, host events with foreign authors, and maintain an extensive archive of global writing.read more »